My Genealogy Hound

JOHN N. WARP, a farmer of Cosmo township, Kearney county, was born in Norway, near Koenigsburg, August 23, 1847, and was reared to farming. He was but seven years of age when he lost his father, and was but a little older when his mother died. His struggle with the affairs of life began at the age of thirteen, when he hired out as a common laborer. At the age of twenty-two he came to America, landing in New York, whence he went to Chicago, and then to Wisconsin, where, for two or three years, he was employed in rafting timber; he then returned to Chicago, and for nearly two years worked in a foundry and machine shop. In March, 1874, he came to Nebraska and passed two years in Omaha; in 1876, he located a homestead of eighty acres in the southwest quarter of section 10, township 5, range 14; in 1877 he had five acres broken, and then returned to Omaha, where he passed another year, and then came back to his farm to stay. He built the usual sod house, in which he lived alone two years, when, in December, 1880, he married, but still kept his habitation in the old sod house until 1888, when he put up a nice frame dwelling. When Mr. Warp came here he had a small amount of money, but it was soon exhausted, and his progress has been made by hard labor. He has added to his original eighty acres the adjoining tract of eighty acres, and of the one hundred and sixty has one hundred and ten under cultivation in mixed crops and well stocked with choice animals, as well as improved with orchards, groves and convenient barns, etc. Mr. Warp married Miss Hilza Johannes, daughter of Johannes Johannsen, the latter a stone-mason and farmer, who died in Norway. Mrs. Warp came to America with a brother in 1878, and this brother is still living in Kearney county. Five children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Warp, named as follows — Julius N., Edward M., Oscar, Lena and Ida. Since Mr. Warp has lived here he has been very successful as a farmer, and has fully established himself in the good opinion of his fellow-citizens, whom he has served in several official capacities. In 1885 he took the census of Cosmo township; he has filled the office of assessor five terms, and has just been elected to fill it a sixth term; but politically, he is independent. Since 1876 he has been a member of the I. O. O. F., and has long been a consistent member of the Danish Lutheran church.

Nelson Warp, the father of our subject, for a number of years worked for the government in the silver mines of Norway, but in 1850 emigrated to California, where he remained about four years, when he returned to his native country and soon after died. He married Miss Inger M. Jacobstatle, who bore him three children, of whom John N. is the eldest. One daughter is a resident of Omaha.